Thursday, August 30, 2012

the 3 s's

spiders, scorpions and snakes.

my room at the iguana is a freestanding cabana with a bathroom and tiny porch.  its very cute.  the only problem (besides the cold showers) is that it isn't sealed from the elements.  the walls are wood and there is a large (and purposeful) gap between the walls and the roof.  the roof is metal with a couple giant holes, which are covered in plastic for some daylight.  the roof makes it hella loud during the thunderstorms, which are every evening and nite.  the roof is also about 6 feet 1 inch high so i have to constantly stoop so i don't feel like i'm going to hit my head.

2 nites ago a giant spider surprised me in my bathroom.  it was a pretty big spider, just hanging out, but i wasn't down with that.  it was also the nite the electricity was out and i only had the lite of my tiny headlamp.  everything is scarier when the power is out.  so i hit the spider with my slipper.  no problem, dead spider, all is well.

last nite, again its a torrential downpour, and i see another giant spider on the ceiling near my bed.  oh hell no.  there are some wooden planks separating the roof from the walls and the spider jumps between those and hides.  aargh.  i'll just have to keep my eye on that area, ok, i can deal with a spider.  i don't think they really want to mess with me anyway.

i happen to look up from my book and see a tiny bit of movement so this time i grab my running shoe for a more solid hit.  and its a scorpion.  on my ceiling.  above my bed.  it must be able to sense my intentions because it scrambles back into the hole that it came out of.  i don't know if it helped any but i started beating that space with my shoe and yelling at it.  maybe i can scare it away.

so now i have a giant spider and a scorpion, hanging out in the wood planks above my bed, conspiring against me.  i haven't seen this much activity in the entire time i've been away.  i think i've killed 2 cockroaches so far.

needless to say i didn't get a great nites sleep.  every few minutes i'd compulsively shine my headlamp along my ceiling, covering the entire room, looking for movement.  i think i finally drifted off around 2am.

the first thing my spanish teacher asks me every morning is what did you do last nite?  we're practicing the past tense.  i told him about my spiders and scorpion.  he wasn't shocked at all, no sympathy.  but his second job is leading nature walks, bird watching, things like that.  so he pulls out his book of indigenous birds and animals of guatemala and decides that i also need to see what kind of snakes are around, just to frighten me a bit more.

boa constrictors.  coral snakes.  rattle snakes.  he was preparing me for what i might find in my room some nite.  what a great guy.


where i go to get wifi








san marcos...fail


its hard to get internet here.  very trying on my patience.  there are computers at the hostel but they are super slow, most likely due to how far away we are from anything.  then there's the power that keeps going out, we didn't have power for over 24 hours after a crazy thunderstorm.  not only bad for internet but no hot showers either (not like they're actually hot to begin with, more like less freezing).  and after a long time without power the water stops running as well.  i'm not sure why but that's what it is.

i did find wifi today at my spanish school and will try to take my computer there tomorrow to update.

the other day kat and i decided to hike to san marcos.  not too hard, walk the rickety board walkways, find the mountain trails, pass 2 small towns and after 3 hours there we are.  or should be.  everything started out very well, we found the trails, got a little direction here and there, no problem.  we stopped at a seemingly deserted hotel for strawberry ice-cream, they said they had wifi but they lied.  we had the choice after that to take a small windy upward mountain trail or a wide cobblestone road.  i was leading at this point so of course i chose the wrong path that wound straight up.  mud, rocks, i kept thinking that if i got to the top i could tell if this was the right way.  every turn i took led to more uphill so i went faster, and that's when the day ceased to be so much fun.  

i jumped onto a rock, slipped, and sliced open my little toe.  yes, i was hiking in slippers. for that initial moment i stood there staring at my toe, that moment when you can see a little bit inside your body where you shouldn't be able to, and thought, oh good i'm not bleeding.  not so much.  it started gushing blood.  in a few seconds i was standing in a puddle.  great.

i found a tissue to wrap up my toe and let kat know that i didn't think i could hike anymore.  she went back down the trail to ask at the hotel where the nearest public boat dock was located.  i got down at about the time she was returning and had gotten directions, past the pool, go down the stairs.  so we start down the stairs, it seemed like it took hours.  there's a sign at the bottom that says there's only 350 steps to the hotel so no wonder.  

we wait and try to flag down boats but obviously this isn't a dock that anyone ever goes to.  so up we go, all 350 stairs again.  and find the cobblestone path that was the one we should have been on anyway.  we find the town and ask directions, we are at the right place.  now its been about 30 minutes since i cut myself, we have about 10 minutes to wait for the next boat.  the dock is partly underwater and waves are rolling in, wind is picking up, all we can do is sit there and watch some men working on the new dock.  

finally the boat shows up, we board and take off, and 50 feet from the dock the boat breaks down.  great.  at least my toe has stopped gushing blood.  they get it fixed and we're off again.  by this time we've missed the cut off for having lunch at the hostel so we decide to get off the boat at a restaurant nearby.  then the rain starts.  thunder.  lightning.  and we're going to have to walk back to the hostel, this wasn't a regular stop.  but whatever, at least we'll be fed.

that's the sort of day that was made for tequila.

otherwise everything else has been great.  i started my spanish class, my teacher is pedro, a cute young guatemalan guy.  we're mostly covering things i've done but need help with and starting a bit of past tense.  its about time that i can talk in anything but the present.  

my last class is on monday so i think that i'll move to antigua on tuesday.  lately i've been feeling an extreme desire to have a set place in a bathroom for my toothbrush, and i'm tired of the same clothes every day.  at least its cold here and i can wear something other than my beach clothes.  but to have a closet, more than one pair of shoes, the same friends to talk to every day.  that sounds good right now.  i don't really want to go home but living out of a backpack is getting old.  so maybe i'm half way done with my trip.  6 months is a respectable amount of time to travel alone, i think.

i have to resolve in the future to spend my vacation time wisely.  if i'd ever gone anywhere maybe i wouldn't be dying for adventure.  so no more sitting at home when i have free time, save money and go somewhere new for a couple weeks.  and if i'm training for something?  screw it, there's gotta be more important things than a race.  i can always bring my running shoes and get a workout carrying them around like I'm doing now.

Monday, August 27, 2012

gettin my culture on

last nite was possibly the best cultural experience to date.  i'm really digging the hostel scene here.  at dinner i was seated with a german family (dad, daughter, son), a spanish couple and a grumpy american.  i'm not entirely certain whether to classify the american man as grumpy or just opinionated, but he lectured several of us about smoking in an outside area (yes, i had a cig today), very angrily, then he gave me a glass of wine, then completely ignored me.

the german family is great.  rheinhart is the father and has been living in honduras for 5 years.  he's fluent in german, english and spanish.  his kids are visiting for 5 weeks.  he smokes monster cigars and tells interesting stories about his years of travel.  he would make an amazing mall santa.

the spanish couple, from barcelona, sat across from me and hadn't spoken to anyone all evening, they had just gotten to santa cruz in time for dinner.  the husband only spoke a little english but his wife had more.  i actually made them understand me in a spanish conversation (after explaining that everything has to be in the present tense).  they travel 5 weeks per year and try to go somewhere new each time.

my scuba buddy and general companion of the day was kat, a younger woman from southern england.  she's sorta goth and has been tromping around central america in doc martens.  i've always been envious of people who make a strong fashion statement, i've never really had the courage to do that.  or i'm just lazy.  i guess slouch is a fashion statement of sorts.

we were joined by a man that spoke halted english, but i never figured out what country he's actually from.  somewhere in central america i think.  his english was better than my spanish.  we sat around with drinks after dinner and talked about anything that popped into anyone's head, but mostly travel.  there were a couple other american women from various places.

it was such a great group, and i quickly learned that not everything is funny in translation.

i'm not sure why i was afraid of hostels before this, la iguana perdida is absolutely the best place i've stayed yet.  i've heard so many stories of hostels being crazy party places and i think i'm just too old to want to party every nite so i've never stayed in one.  sleeping in a dorm with 8 other people, sharing a bathroom, not my style at all anymore.  i like to sleep.  but this weekend i've finally realized that hostels have a couple nice rooms as well, cheaper than the hotels, that i can hang with everyone all day then have a nice peaceful nite in my own room.  aha.  at my 3 month travel anniversary i have finally learned something useful.



Sunday, August 26, 2012

lago de atitlan scuba dive

this is my first true hostel experience and i really like it.  the europeans here are traveling, mostly english, and the americans are here for the weekend from their daily lives in guatemala.  all of the american women live and work nearby, in the peace corps or with the mayan people to improve their lives.  its pretty mellow and i'm happy about that.

i haven't gone exploring much yet, after an overnite travel i need a couple days to relax and recover.  i walked down to a rocky beach yesterday to swim, it was pretty cold and i mostly sat on a large rock in the sun.  but there are trails all around the lake and in the next few days i'm going to start wandering to the other towns and find a volcano guide.  there is still some worry about theft on the trails so its the general opinion that if you are by yourself pay a guide 100q to take you to the remote areas.  even better for me since i won't get lost.  i walked the road to the spanish school but it was closed for the weekend, i'll go back tomorrow and hopefully start classes.

the food here is amazing.  there is a group of mayan women (girls, almost) that does all of the cooking and cleaning.  the kitchen is open from 8-3 and the menu is good.  dinner is communal, all the tables are pushed together and candle lit, the amount of food is insane.  there is no way you can go hungry here.  and the bar is open all day, until about 1am.

this area was originally a super volcano, a giant plateau.  i don't know when it erupted but all the sides blew out and the plateau collapsed, silt washed down from the surrounding volcanoes and i formed a lake at 5500 feet.

as you boat or walk around you can see palapas and docks and walkways sunk a few feet beneath the water.  most of the walkways are now carved into the dirt or you have to walk over the water on rickety wooden bridges that sag when my considerable weight is on them.  just a couple feet under the water is a beautiful cobblestone road that runs around the entire lake.  everyone says that the lake is rising but that's not entirely correct.

several years ago there was an earthquake and the lake level dropped over 10 feet.  so people started building on all the new land.  now the lake is returning to its original level and slowly washing away houses.

i did 2 scuba dives this morning.  i was wearing a 7mil wetsuit and i was so cold, what a change from belize, diving in my bikini.  the water was green and visibility was about 15 feet.  we checked out the rock formations, saw lots of crabs, some plants and a few fish.  nothing really to get excited about but it was a good experience.  i think that one day of diving here is enough for me.

this was my first altitude dive as well as first lake dive.  the pressure changes were more extreme and i had to constantly add or release air from my bcd or i'd sink, or do what we were warned about, the uncontrolled ascent.  easy to see how that can happen.  and you're not allowed to leave here for 24 hours after diving since you have to go up over the mountains.

a few years ago they discovered a mayan village about 50 feet under water on the other side of the lake.  the government is currently studying it and no divers are allowed.  i asked if we could sneak in but my dive master, andrew (with gorgeous long brown hair that i'm totally jealous of), said that it is a popular local fishing spot and is always crowded.  the government pays the locals to tell on anyone who might go there, and when they do open it for diving in the next year or so if you snuck in then your dive shop won't be permitted to take tourists there.

i've been out of the water for about an hour now and am still slightly cold.  i'm going to curl up in a hammock and read and nap.


Friday, August 24, 2012

lago de atitlan

22 hours later, here i am at lago de atitlan, staying at la iguana perdida.  what an amazing place, a lake at 5500 feet surrounded by volcanoes and small towns.

i left belize in a taxi to get to benque, it cost a few dollars more than the bus but i couldn't get myself to get on another bus in san ignacio.  he dropped me off a few feet from the border and i walked into the office to check out of belize, $27bz to get out.  which i don't quite understand why every country charges you money to enter then leave.  they're getting all of my tourist dollars, that should be sufficient, i think.  the next few feet of walking before guatemala was a cluster of men with huge wads of cash offering to change my us or belize dollars to quetzals, necessary if i wanted to get on my next bus.  a few more feet was guatemala immigration, basically stamp my passport and bienvenido.  easy.

walking from belize to guatemala was a nite and day change in scenery.  i left english speaking, run down, rock and roll playing towns and entered a colorful wonderland of spanish speaking, printed handmade clothing and mariachi music.  i'm not sure yet what they call the music here but it reminded me of mexico.  everything reminded me of mexico, i instantly felt better and so happy to be here. 

i found a taxi to the nearest bus station and hopped a bus to flores.  i think the worst parts of travel for me are when i get out of a bus or taxi, half a dozen people magically appear around me all trying to take me somewhere, and speaking so fast that i can't figure out what any of them are saying.  in flores i was let off outside a large building but i had no idea that it was the bus stop.  i managed to make it known that i needed a bus to guatemala city and was led into an office.  now had i known that i was actually in the bus station i would have gone to the counter and bought a ticket.  but there were no buses and no signs so i gave the guy money and got a ticket.  then he takes me through a little door and i see the bus station.  duh.  i probably paid a few extra dollars for some guy to buy my ticket for me.  i have to learn a little more patience, to understand my surroundings better before making decisions.  i thought i had worked on that but apparently not enough.

now i have a ticket to guatemala city and 5 hours to kill.  the bus station is not like in mexico, all the benches are concrete and not a place i'd like to sit for a few hours.  a soccer game is on and about 30 men are crowded around a 20" tv, smoking and yelling.  i wander around for a bit, find some food, and snuggle into a terribly uncomfortable seat with my kindle.

i booked a first class bus which turned out to be similar to the ones in mexico, almost but not quite as nice.  my seat mate rudy was born in guatemala but lived in new york for 17 years, it was nice to understand someone.  my ears weren't picking up much of the spanish here.  i managed to sleep for almost the entire 9 hours.

it was fortunate that i met rudy because i was planning on having him direct me to the correct bus to panajachel but he got off 10 minutes before the bus station.  so no guide.  and as usual, surrounded by men wanting to take me in their bus or taxi or tuktuk and i can't figure out what's going on.  mostly i stared at everyone and said 'necesito ir a panajachel' over and over.  eventually i got in a taxi and after a few minutes the driver pulls over to make a phone call, he called his son who speaks english and i told him where i needed to go and he told his father.  so this guy is driving me around and doesn't even know where i want to go.

a few more minutes we get to a bus and shuttle.  and again i can't get them to speak slowly so i start repeating 'necesito ir a panajachel' again and i have 2 guys left who want to take me.  one has a nice bus, the other a van.  they both say that they will take me where i want to go.  i feel more bonded to my taxi driver since our drive so i ask his opinion, he says one is more comfortable, the other a little quicker.  so i opt for the bus, i'm not ready to be squished into a van after so many hours of travel.  this was not the correct choice.

turns out that the bus driver was taking me to another place where i could catch 2 more buses to get where i wanted to go.  i missed that part.

i got on the bus and promptly fell asleep, woken up by a man shouting scripture and singing and shaking a gourd type instrument for about 20 minutes.  then he walked around collecting donations.  next up was a man with pictures of a digestive system and explaining how important it was to have a healthy gut.  he passed out bottles of herbs for people to buy.  then came a man who lost the use of one of his arms and needed money for a doctor.

the bus was stopping to pick up people along the highway so i finally got a seatmate, a younger guy.  i pulled out my lonely planet's map of guatemala and asked where we were (i think i was on the bus for about 2 hours at this point), he pointed to a spot where i didn't want to be.  we had taken a road away from panajachel and were now going north straight up into the mountains.  i think this is when i finally understood what the guys at the bus were saying and it was way too late to do anything about it.  there was another hour and a half before i'd get to a connecting road to take me back south.

at this point i was really wishing i had my toothbrush.  deoderant.  soap.  coffee.  anything to eat.  a bathroom.  someone who wouldn't talk so freaking fast and use baby words with me.

desperation made me turn on my cell phone to find a map of guatemala and figure out where the hell i was.  and how i could get back.  probably the most expensive iphone blue dot ever.  in reality, though, i paid 20 quetzals, somewhere around $3, for a 4 hour mountain tour.  i tried to adjust my thinking.

finally the man i originally spoke with came to get me and told me that i needed to get off, he grabbed my backpack and give it to a man standing behind a chicken bus.  they lashed it to the roof and i got on.  hoping this was the right bus. 

i thought i was on a chicken bus in belize but now i truly know what one is.  i found a seat near the back, music blaring, and right before the bus took off about 40 more people got onto the already crowded bus.  we sat 3 or 4 per seat and the aisle was crushed with people.  all wearing beautiful handmade colorful clothing.  i was the only white person, which wasn't bad, but what a novelty for the people, gringos usually don't come here.  wherever i was.

bus starts rolling, more people getting on along the road, i realize that if i needed to get off somewhere there's no way i can get out.  or yell over the music.  guess i'm going wherever this bus takes me.

i pulled out my phone for another blue dot check and i actually was going the direction i wanted.  oh thank god.  and i managed to keep my backpack with me as well.  at some point i had made peace with losing all of my belongings just in case.

this bus stopped in a town that wasn't panajachel and i got the idea that i needed to find another bus.  3 blocks, i think he said.  i start walking and hurray there's a taxi.  i cannot get on another bus today.  god only knows where i'll end up.  i get a ride to the town and walk to the dock.  almost there.

a bunch of us pile into a small boat and the man behind me, norman, starts talking to me in english.  and he's lived here for 6 years.  finally someone to explain where i need to go with no question about what he is saying.  and i get the guided tour of the lake (which is huge), he's pointing out small towns everywhere.  things to do.  hikes.  it takes about 10 minutes to get to santa cruz.  and when we pull up to the dock i can see the sign for my hostel!  a shower is in sight!

la iguana perdida is a very nice place.  it was hard to communicate with them while in belize so i emailed shortly before i left and said that i'd like the $18 per night room with private bathroom.  but if its not available i'd rather be upgraded than downgraded.  so i'm currently in a $30 per night room and will move to the cheaper one on monday.  they have a full restaurant and bar, dinner is communal and you have to sign up in advance, i'm doing yoga at 5, and friday nite is trivia nite.

there is no wifi here (omg omg omg) and the cable connections don't work with my computer.  i guess i should be thankful, though, they just got electricity a few years ago.

oh, and sorry for the typos, i actually have to pay to use internet so i'm not going to proofread much...

Thursday, August 23, 2012

well belize, you've been fun...

i've just said goodbye to linda and john and am about packed and ready for my next adventure.  i'm off to guatemala today, i'll find a bus to benque, then a taxi to the border, walk through, a bus to flores, a bus to guatemala city, a shuttle to panajachel to the tzanjuyu boat dock, then a boat to santa cruz.  phew.  that should only take about 24 hours.  but it includes a decent amount of sitting around in bus stations which i'm getting good at.  the excellent thing is that the entire trip will cost me around $50.

mainland belize and i got off to a shaky start but i think we're friends now.  yesterday i hopped in the truck with john and linda and we covered a couple hundred miles of sites.  it was a long day but totally worth it.  our first stop was caracol, mayan ruins, about 50ish miles away, mostly on unpaved roads.  it took somewhere around 3 hours to get there.  the ruins were fascinating, lots of fun things to climb, unsafe holes to fall into, good stuff.  i keep saying that i'm done with ruins, i've been to too many, i can't possibly take another, but honestly they are so awe inspiring that i'm always glad i've gone to see one more.  but now i'm done.  seriously.

after caracol, which is really the end of the road, we backtracked to the mountain pine ridge forest reserve and stopped at the rio on pools.  john wanted to stop at the rio on caves but we couldn't seem to find them.  to go through the reserve you are normally required to get a military escort but when we checked in their truck had broken down.  so when checking out we were supposed to ask for the secret road (apparently) to the caves but we didn't learn that until much later.  oh well.

the rio on pools were super nice, lots of waterfalls and pools to swim in.  instead of swimming we hiked to the bottom then back to the top.  saw the biggest grasshopper i've ever seen, it was half the size of my foot.

after the pools we stopped at any trail on the side of the road that looked interesting and hiked a bit into the jungle.  we found an old army training center rotting and falling apart, made out of tree branches and rough cut benches, the frame was still standing with laminated jungle rules attached.  "don't antagonize the scorpions and snakes."  i guess you do have to tell boys that.  we also found a homemade snare, an intricately handwoven palm frond cage with a small opening on one side and spikes inside, baited with a chicken bone.

not alot in the way of wildlife sightings beside the giant grasshopper.  i was almost planning on getting bitten by a snake in the jungle.  no snakes, no jaguars, no monkeys (but we could hear them howling).  i'm sure i'll find plenty in guatemala.

maybe the coolest wildlife i've seen here are the leaf cutter ants.  they walk up and down their trails with their triangle shaped leaf parts, busy busy busy.  they spend so much time walking from trees to their nest that they carve their trails into the dirt, you can see them from far away, maybe an inch deep and 2 inches wide.  they must be walking the same path for months.

as we were driving we saw a giant sign on the side of the road that said 'look', with a giant smiley face.  so we stopped to look, of course.  peeking into the trees i saw a cave at the bottom of a small hill, straight down.  i was the first to go down the trail, which turned out to be some mud and slimy wet rocks.  which made me start sliding right towards the hole in the ground.  slightly out of control, i grabbed the first tree i could find so i wouldn't slide into the seemingly bottomless cave and hurray, its covered in 2 inch spikey thorns.  thankfully many other people had fallen into this same situation so most of the spikes at the sliding-on-your-ass level were broken off.

what would make someone put up a sign that would lead you to accidentally slide down over rocks into a black hole in the ground?  after regaining footing and inspecting the cave with a headlamp john decided that since we didn't have any rope we shouldn't climb down.

back in the truck we took the road leading to the 1000 foot falls.  there was a nice smooth dirt road leading up to a resort (which had a sign saying that their bathrooms, restaurant, bar, and waterfalls were for their guests only and we were not welcome.  linda thinks its where the stars go to get their nose and boob jobs).  after the resort it was back to pot holes and gullies.

1000 foot falls is beautiful.  and actually 1600 feet.  the valley is immense, tree covered mountains all the way into guatemala.  john and i hiked around a bit and it reminded me of the kalalau trail, its perfectly ok to hike but you have to be ok with heights.  big heights.

there is an old mayan couple that lives above the viewing platform and collected our $2bz to see the falls.  they had a little store with no electricity selling handcrafted jewelry and clothing and luke warm drinks.  they've lived there for 23 years, in almost total isolation, taking care of the grounds and charging the tourists.  they go to town for a couple hours every other month to buy supplies.  town is a very bumpy 2 hour ride, if you're in a hurry.

between the atm cave, caves branch tubing, caracol, rio on, 1000 foot falls and ambergris caye i've covered an immense portion of belize in 2 weeks.  the maya mountains are vast bunches of adventure that i've barely seen, though.  maybe some day.

so to wrap up belize, gorgeous scenery, endless activities, but culture wise it lacks a bit.  someone who lives here said that they've gotten their cultures so mixed up that they don't have anything that particularly represents belizean people.  they copy things from mexico and guatemala since they've forgotten their own roots.  the only representative food i could find was baked beans and rice, or stew beans and rice, just a different kind of beans, really.  but everyone speaks english and that makes it really easy to attract tourists.  i think i'll come back some day.

now its time to shake all the ants out of my keyboard and move on.


a little warning, please


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

caves branch tubing

i ate a live termite today.  on purpose.

john and i went tubing on the caves branch river, linda was going to go but she sprained her ankle a couple days ago.  edwin picked us up at the hotel and we drove a bit over an hour, almost half way to belize city.  on the way we spotted a toucan!!  i've been trying to find a toucan for several days with no luck, you'd figure they'd be everywhere since its the national bird.  it was easier finding a crocodile.

we got to the river and hiked for about 40 minutes, stopping several times along the way to learn about the poisonous plants, poisonous insects, everything along the trail.  the poisonous plants, trees mostly, each had a built in antidote if you knew how to harvest it.  and one of the trees had a compound in the bark that would slow down reactions to ant and snake bites and allow you to get to a hospital.  neat stuff.

we ate some plants along the way as well, begonias, very tart, palm kernels, like hard coconut, and craboo, like... i'm not sure what.  incidentally, i tried a craboo colada at the bar last nite and it was super good.

john asked about a giant lump on a tree and it turned out to be a termite nest.  edwin stuck his finger in it and said they are mostly protein and tasted like mint with a carrot aftertaste.  his hand was crawling with them.  he asked if we wanted to try.  first reaction, cringe and back away.  but then i thought, i'm standing in a jungle in belize and someone wants me to eat a termite.  when will this moment happen again?

so i ate a termite.  when he crunched in my teeth he really did taste minty.  and after a few minutes he tasted carroty.

we finished our walk and ended up near a cave on the river.  we're the first group to get to the water, and its just john and me.  we jump in our inner tubes, strap on headlamps, here we go.  i probably won't be able to describe this very well so here's a little article.  we floated into the first cave and it was full of stalactites, stalagmites, the usual.  john used to belong to a spelunking club so of course he's got his super brite lite so we can look in every hole and corner.  lots of bats flying overhead, super dark, cold water, fun stuff.

after about 20 minutes or so we get to the end of the first cave and into the open, edwin stops for a swim.  this is also about the half way point of the trip and there are people getting into the water here.  some guides want to take people half way up the trail, hurry them along, then grab another group of people and double their money for the day.  so as we come down the river a guy's looking at us asking where we were coming from, he thought he was at the top.  we take about 20 minutes here wandering around checking out the outside of the cave, watching other small groups speed by.

time to go, back on the tubes, we enter the next cave.  this one opens up into a huge cavern with a waterfall and a cave in towards the back so there's a bit of sunlight shining through.  it was a beautiful sight, everything is dark and suddenly there a bright spot full of old trees and a winding staircase going up and out of the cave.  we stop our tubes under the waterfall and start to climb, its only a few feet tall but it was dark and full of pointy slippery rocks so somewhat sketchy.  i love that i can do things here that i'd never be allowed to do at home, these tours would have been shut down long long ago as unsafe.

behind the waterfall there was a 25 foot deep pool that we got to jump into from about 7 feet up.  doesn't sound like much but its almost black inside the cave but the water is so clear that you can see the giant boulders at the bottom.  he says its ok, he says its ok, its ok, jump.  it was ok.  then we walked up the stairway and ogled the scenery while other tour groups were sailing by, no one else got to stop and see the waterfall and jump off rocks.  john and i apparently got the deluxe tour.

more caves, then back outside, through some rapids, then we're done.  another enjoyable day.

since we had another hour or so to get home we're asking edwin every question we can think of.  the following is a small sample of interesting things i learned.

bikers.  i see them on the road here and it scares me.  the roads are skinnier than on kauai and people drive like crazy here, i was terrified for them.  but bikers here, the ones training for races and on actual road bikes, buy a permit to use the road.  if a car hits a biker with a permit they're in super deep shit so people go out of their way to be careful of them.

the belizean government sold a bunch of passports to taiwan to encourage immigration here.  there is a huge asian population, from stores and restaurants to crop science centers.  the taiwanese flag is everywhere.  at first no one here could understand them but since a younger generation has been born the kids learn to speak both taiwanese and creole and all is good.

there is also a huge population of both amish and menonites.  horses and buggies on the roads, long beards, formal looking clothes, they look more out of place here than they do in ohio.  but they have carved out their little place and everyone gets along.  there's also another similar group that they call 'mechanites', almost the same as menonites but they use heavy duty equipment on their farms.

the wage paid to a lower level worker, say the women that cook me breakfast and clean my room, is around $30 belize per day.  which is $15 us per day.  for an 8 or 10 hour day.  good thing the locals don't have to pay the prices they charge tourists.

and there was alot more that i'm having trouble recalling at this point.

i just got back from dinner with john and linda, i'm leaving here on thursday and i will miss them, john has been a wonderful adventure buddy.  we drove down a dirt road to find the spot where the 2 rivers meet (the founders of this area thought they were on an island, which is why its called 'cayo' even though its not an island.  some recollection going on now), we saw an owl and 2 strange animals fighting in the road in the headlites.  they were either small possums or large rats, not sure.  after finding the river we see a foot bridge going across.  i happen to have a headlamp in my bag so of course john and i have to try it out.  missing boards, loose boards, possibly it was so dark out that we missed the bridge closed sign.

which brings up my instructions should i fall through the broken wooden slats of a bridge over crocodile and leach infested waters somewhere in a third world.  you probably won't find any pieces of me to cremate but if its a really cool death like that i want it described in detail in my obituary.  or as my final facebook post.  whichever.


lazy day on the river

Monday, August 20, 2012

actun tunichil muknal

i went spelunking today.  john and i joined a tour group going to actun tunichil muknal (or atm cave).  we drove about an hour and a half, half on unpaved pot-holed roads, with a tour guide and 5 other people.  we were given a list of things to bring, some you leave in the van, some go in your backpack, but no one told me i couldn't wear my backpack for the entire trip so of course i've got my wallet, iphone, all sorts of random crap that should be locked up in my room.  oops.  we were also told to bring bug spray but weren't allowed to use it since the water we were going to trek through was the town's drinking water.

and no cameras.  what??  i don't go anywhere without a camera.  there are sacrificial remains in the top of the cave that have been left intact.  apparently not long ago some stupid tourist was leaning over one skeleton taking a picture, dropped his camera, and punched a hole in the skull.  so no cameras anymore.  but they let john take his giant dive lite, about 10 times heavier than my camera, for some reason that was ok.

we got to the site and there was a mile hike with 3 river crossings.  i had to wear my running shoes and they've never been submersed in water, poor things really got worked today.  the hike was pretty, through trees so not very hot.  thankfully no bugs.

at the end of the hike is where i had to leave my backpack and i was uncomfortable leaving it in the open with everyone else's so i hiked it into the woods and hid it.  cross fingers i still have stuff when i get back.

the mouth of the cave was overhead water that we had to swim across.  cold but not icy, felt kinda nice after the hike.  we all wore swimsuits and lite clothes on top, had helmets and head lamps.  most of the cave was wet so we walked or climbed through anything from overhead water to ankle deep, mostly about shin level.

the natural formations were amazing.  there were wide open chambers and tight passages to squeeze through.  i don't know the technical terms for caves and i wish i could have taken pictures, so here's a little writeup on it.

the cave is a few miles long but we only hiked a small portion, about an hour and a half of climbing and wading through water.  at one point we climbed up several feet and for some reason this is where we had to leave our shoes, the rest of the hike up was in socks.  not sure why.  there was broken pottery on all sides, containers for water and food offerings and blood sacrifice.  these were roped off with orange tape so no one would tromp on them.

after a little more walking, all dry now, we found a creaky ladder to get to a chamber with the sacrificial remains.  we were able to see 5 skeletons (one with a camera shaped hole in the skull) but there were more that the public cannot access.  the major skeleton was the crystal maiden, laid out as perfectly as she had been in about 900ad.  next to her was a young boy who had his arms and legs broken and tied behind his back.

there wasn't alot of wildlife in the cave, some bats, a crab that seemed really out of place, and a single white ant.  or bug.  not sure what it was.

the hike back was much quicker, we changed to dry clothes, drank rum punch and were on our way home.  worth the money if you're ever in belize.

i did sneak my camera back to the cave entrance for a picture but i'm unable to upload at the moment.  check back later...


aaah here we go
atm entrance

Saturday, August 18, 2012

travel to san ignacio

today's post was going to be full of happy wonderful things and how much i love belize until i got into a fight on the last bus.  assholes.

i'm so over the guys in this country, i can't wait to get back to hispanic people.  guatemala in 5 days.    no one bothered me when i was hanging out with john and he'll be here tomorrow, so this shouldn't be bad.  hopefully he and his wife won't get too tired of me hanging around.

i left san pedro on the 9:30am boat, stopped at caye caulker then belize city.  a gross man slept on me half the way and i had to keep pushing him off.  ick.  in belize city a cab to the bus station showed me a pretty inner city kinda place, decay and garbage, i'm glad i didn't decide to spend a nite there.  when we started driving i was sure that the driver was taking me to the hood to mug me.  but that's just what the city looks like, i guess.

we boarded an old school bus, i think this may have been my first chicken bus experience.  the weirdest thing someone had was a giant tv on her lap but i don't think it needs actual chickens to qualify.  i got serious grade school flashbacks from the bus and they weren't the good kind.  i had to take the bus to belmopan, then another to san ignacio.  i was told that the first was an express bus but what that really means is that it will only stop to pick up people on the side of the road if there's an open seat.

i sat with a nice girl, born and raised in belize, and she pointed out some interesting things in my lonely planet.  she is a pageant director and artist, and wants to have a mobile art studio, travel through central america in her bus with her boyfriend, selling their stuff wherever they go.

at belmopan i changed to another bus, finally my own seat.  i bought some chips from a wandering boy and they turned out to be banana chips, not corn chips.  add some hot sauce, they were so good. but probably not much better for me, fried is fried i guess.  and off we go, crazy broken school bus flying down the highways.

i had some issues with a couple guys on this bus but i'm going to skip that.  total downer since i enjoyed the first bus so much.  after that i was just in a bad mood.


the bus station in san ignacio is a gravel lot with a couple people selling food.  i found a cab, got to my 'hotel', which is a hut on the edge of the jungle, and now here i sit on a hammock while women clean my room.  there's a giant dog curled up underneath me.  i just watched an iguana bite the tail off another one.  ants and centipedes are walking around the door frame.  a moth the size of my head flew into the room.  and i think the mosquitos have finally found me.  i'm in the jungle now, and will probably get malaria today, that's what a downturn my day has taken.

food.  drinks.  swimming pool.  nap in the a/c.  then i can start the day over.



rusty





Friday, August 17, 2012

crocodiles are scarier than you'd guess...

its my last nite on ambergris caye, tomorrow morning i take the ferry to belize city, then a bus to san ignacio.  its been fun here, the diving is great, and i'd put this on the list of places to visit again.

i've done a few more dives since my last post, including today, even though i had planned on spending the day packing and taking care of errands and laundry.  but john knocked on my door at 9am and said we're going back to see the sharks, and that he brought an extra dive watch for me, so how could i say no?

we also did a nite dive a couple days ago which was spectacular, so much stuff comes alive in the dark.  the corals were feeding, lobsters and crabs were on the march, and the really giant fish are hanging around.  shrimp were guarding their territory, the conchs digging holes, there were clams, eels, slugs, sleeping turtles, so many weird things crawling around that i can't name.  shine your lite in a hole and somethings staring out at you.  i thought the grouper were huge but then i saw a parrot fish that must have been close to 4 feet long hiding in the rocks.

all you can see is what's in your dive lite beam and its a bit creepy wondering what might be swimming behind you.  and then there are the blood worms swarming the lite, and the little fish picking them off.  the nite dive was definitely a highlite on this trip.

i got to watch a little bit of shark week in the bars last nite with chuckie.  they were only showing great whites so it didn't freak me out too much when i went back in the water today.  we went back to shark & ray alley in between dives and i remembered to take my camera this time.  actually i took my camera on all the dives today, its only rated to 30 feet but i took it to 90, the only thing that happened was that it shut down below 60 feet.  and when it did work the pressure mashed in all of the buttons so i couldn't change settings or zoom.  but it still seems to be working ok.

shark & ray alley was fun with a camera, the rays seemed to think i was holding food and they kept trying to eat it.  they would glide up and at the last moment they'd move upward and open their slimy little mouths on their undersides and suck on the camera.  it was really cute.

since its my last day john and i went on a final crocodile hunt on the south side of the island, we went north last time.  we heard there was a place to see them just off the road so we jogged to the water tower, i was dying, that's the furthest i've run in weeks, and in the blazing afternoon sun, then took the side roads by the lagoon.  we knew we were in the right place when we saw the 'do not feed the crocodiles' sign, and we saw one briefly before he went under.  feeding the crocs is apparently a $1000 fine or 6 months jail time.

we didn't see any more so we kept walking, and nothing.  stopped into a store for a drink and i asked where the best place to see them was and that was it, right where we were.  disappointing.  but the store had frozen chicken legs so we bought a couple pounds and went back.  the frozen chicken felt so good on the back of my neck, it was worth it to buy regardless of whether a croc wanted it or not.

the plan was to thaw the chicken in the water near the edge so we could break it up, tie the individual legs on long pieces of vine, and go 'fishing'.  we made sure to get off the main road so we wouldn't get caught.  but as we're waiting for the chicken to thaw a monster croc swam up and sat there staring at us.  he was inches from the chicken but he didn't seem to know exactly where it was since it was in a patch of sea grass.  john picked up a stick, not a very long one, and pushed the chicken towards the big guy and instantly the croc lunges at it and swallows it whole.  it was quite disturbing, actually, seeing how fast this thing moved.  and so many teeth!  i was a little nervous when he swam up but seeing him eat kinda terrified me.

i didn't really consider what would happen if we saw one since we had such bad luck the other day.  the chicken wrappers and john's water bottle were sitting where we left them on the ground a few feet from the water and the croc could smell it.  slowly he started climbing out of the water to investigate and that's when we got to see all his claws.  and its instantly way more terrifying than when he was just sitting in the water.  his eyes were tracking every move we made and if we walked to one side he'd shift his body to point at us.  no wonder they don't want you to feed them.

croc moved to check out the chicken garbage and picked up john's water bottle instead, mashing it several times in his jaws before spitting it out.  terror level spikes.  for me, i'm not sure john was even a bit worried.  all i could think about was that moments before i was holding partially defrosted chicken at the edge of the water trying to pry the pieces apart, and how much i probably smelled like his last dinner.  i slowly began backing away.

i turned my camera on to video at this point, thinking that if the croc charged john we'd have some footage for his darwin award.

the video is interesting but pretty unusable since my hands were shaking so badly.

as we're walking home john asked what i would have thought if a croc that size had come swimming up to us in the kayak the other day.  and now i have to admit that i didn't really think that plan through very well.




um... john?

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

crocodiles, dolphins and sharks

john and i went crocodile hunting yesterday.  he had been to a hotel near the lagoon to inquire about renting a kayak and they told him that there had to be 2 people if he wasn't going in the ocean.  they couldn't understand why someone would want to paddle in the lagoon.  so i was recruited as his second, and off we went.

the lagoon is huge, full of mangroves, lots of places to get lost.  we started paddling around the edges looking for any spots that a crocodile could hide.  i kept expecting to see eyes staring at me from the surface of the water and was somewhat disappointed that they weren't there waiting for us. all of the hotels in that area have crocodile crossing signs, and there's a bar called crocs, so of course they should be everywhere.

when we didn't see any right off we started paddling into the trees, having to pull the boat over the roots, getting stuck, backing out, trying again, still no crocs.  we made our way for about an hour, sticky hot, soaking wet with awful sulphur smelling mud, looking for some land, maybe the crocs spend this part of the day relaxing under trees.  so we kept paddling until we saw land, a few palm trees mixed in with the mangroves, and we pulled up and tried to get out.  the first thing that happened was sinking a couple feet into mud and losing our shoes.  took some time to dig them out but we walked as much as we could and no crocodiles.

very disappointing afternoon.  we found an area that was being filled in, presumably to build a house, cement blocks marking off the area and tons and tons of sand must have been hauled in to fill it.  we still sunk as we walked, although not as much, and no sign of crocodiles.

after a few hours we paddled back to the dock (took a few tries to find our way through the trees), went to the nearest bar, had a beer, and asked for directions to anywhere nearby that people regularly see crocodiles.  we walked and walked and nothing.

i found out today that there's a guy somewhere on the island that does night tours to find crocodiles, everyone wears headlamps and you tromp through the mud.  we might do that this week.  finding them wasn't really on my to-do list, but now that i've tried and couldn't i think i have to.

went diving again this morning and as usual here it was epic.  yes, i'm sure you're thinking that any day i'm not at work, screwing around somewhere, must be epic, but that's not always the case.  (i'd say its only around 75% of the time).

our first dive was at tackle box.  today its just me and john diving, rubin is our divemaster as always, and chuckie driving the boat.  i'm the first one down and there are 5 sharks circling my legs.  instantly i'm hoping that someone else gets down quick, they're just nurse sharks and i know they won't bother me but its hard to get used to that idea.  one spends more time with me than the rest and it has a little injury, a circle of broken skin, about half way down its body.  he's just cruising, checking me out, so beautiful.

the dive is pretty much like the rest, all sorts of amazing things, and we're heading back when rubin signals to look up, 6 giant bottle nose dolphins are headed our way.  rubin takes out his regulator and free flows, making giant trails of bubbles that the dolphins are swimming in and out of, they're swimming between us, bumping each other, getting almost close enough to touch us but not quite.  we spend about 5 minutes watching the dolphins play in rubin's bubbles and zipping around us before they head out.  and then its time to go since rubin has no air left.

our surface interval is spent snorkeling part of the reef and even that is good.  there are giant lobsters hiding in the rocks but i'm afraid to grab them without gloves.  its ok to catch them here with a snorkel but scuba hunting is not allowed.

back on the boat its time to relax for another 20 minutes before our next dive.  i find out that neither of the guys has been to the united states, although both of them have tried.  chuckie has never left belize.  rubin has applied for a visa several times and has always been denied, each time paying $300 that he didn't get back.  to apply for a visa to the us or canada you pay the fee and have to show proof of employment, bank statements, travel arrangements, and have sponsors.  only about 20% of the applicants get to go, which really surprised me considering how everything here is closely tied to the states.  i thought they could come and go just like i could.  but the belizean government was caught selling passports to liberians so the united states cut off travel for a while.  now its just severely restricted.

our second dive was at a reef that didn't have a name, so i called it 'rubin's reef'.  lots more of the same, which i don't think i can ever get tired of.  the coolest thing about this dive was that after being out of the water for over an hour and travelling further down the reef the same nurse shark with the injury found us again.  it was incredible.  and he followed us for the entire time, just like earlier.  he was always in sight, i just had to look around a little bit.  rubin caught his fin and held him upside down in his arms to pet his belly, then john caught him, then john caught him again and passed him to me.  i was holding a shark and rubbing his belly and he didn't even care.

if it wasn't so expensive here i could stay another few weeks and play in the water.  i know there are so many other things to see but every time i'm in the water i can't imagine going anywhere else.  but everything here is over my budget and i have to move on.  i made plans to go to san ignacio on saturday, jungle hikes to ruins and cave tubing.  it'll be at least a month till i'm back on the ocean and it makes me a little sad.

i just had dinner with chuckie (dollar tacos and belikin beer), he's originally from san ignacio and was giving me some ideas of what i should see.  i also found out that john is headed to the same place on sunday, we even have reservations at the same bungalows.  it'll be nice to have an adventure buddy for another few days, maybe we'll go jaguar hunting.


croc hunting

Sunday, August 12, 2012

blue hole

i doubt that i can accurately describe the dives today.  they were unreal.

woke up at 4:30am (hurray, set my alarm today) and prepared for a 5:30 pickup.  the boat met john and i at our dock and took us to the big dive boat, we checked our gear and had fruit and coffee.  the trip to blue hole was 2.5 hours and it was intense.  we traveled inside the reef for about 25 minutes, nice and smooth, then crossed to the open ocean.  have you ever been on a 50 foot boat catching air?  that was the next hour and a half, hang on tight.  i've been on some crazy boat rides before but this really put them all to shame.  we were gonna make it to our destination in 2.5 hours regardless of how big the waves or how strong the winds.  the last half hour was inside another reef and calm again while we got ready to dive.

i have to admit that i was pretty nervous about diving the blue hole.  i'd met some people in cozumel that did it and they were telling stories about people that get narced at that depth (130 feet) and are just doing crazy shit, totally unsafe.  my deepest dive to date is 90 feet, and that was only yesterday.  add to that the brand new gash on my hand that was oozing blood last nite and only my 12th dive ever, i was questioning if i had any business going down.  but how could i not?

the plan was to slowly go to 40 feet and wait a bit, then to 100 feet, then bottom out at 130 (the actual bottom is around 400 feet i think).  the first 40 was nice, decent visibility, some fish, all good.  looking down all you see is black, that's when the nerves start.  it didn't help that one of the divemasters is already coming up fast holding onto an obviously disoriented woman from the first group.  so we kick off the ledge and slowly descend and as you go down into the darkness you are surrounded by suspended particles, big chunks of sand maybe, and it reminded me of pictures of outerspace, floating in the stars.  there aren't any fish and very few plants, just some algae on the rocks.  and then the stalactites begin as the ceiling of the cave opens up, sort of like a giant hourglass.  the stalactites are huge, like the columns on the parthenon.  everything was great until i looked at my depth gauge and realized that i was at 135 feet.

i don't know exactly what its like to be narced but there were some crazy thoughts running through my head.  the first thing i did was hold my regulator against my face because i thought maybe i might try to breathe without it.  and since i had a few extra minutes in the morning before the boat was due i checked facebook, i remembered someone's starwars post.  so i'm in dark dark water, there's white particles floating around me, my breathing sounds like darth vader, and i fuzzily recall a little death star mind trip.  but i couldn't have been too far gone because i distinctly remember wondering how the hell i was gonna write about it.

so i started talking myself through this part, i knew that we were only going to be at this depth for about 8 minutes.  breathe.  look at stuff.  breathe.  breathe.  everythings ok.  breathe.

the next thing i remember is seeing john waving at me and pointing down, there were some giant reef sharks circling underneath us.  i can't even guess what depth they were at, they were grey figures against the black bottom.  and then he's frantically signaling to me to rip the tape off my cut hand and bleed in the water so he can get a better look at the sharks.  he's a funny guy.

now its time to start ascending and we take it pretty slowly, we get to the shelf at 100 feet and stop for a couple minutes to make sure the group is all there.  we go up to 40 feet to the sandy bottom and stop again, the fish and plants are back.  we continue to 25 feet and stay there for a while, a safety stop and reality check.  i notice that the dive boat has a couple air tanks with regulators suspended about 20 feet on lines in case someone has run out of air.  good thinking.  we continue to the surface, total dive time is about 40 minutes.  amazing.  i'm so glad i did it.

after a 10 minute ride we are at half moon caye, and are going to dive the half moon wall.  again we're prepping our gear after a surface interval, drinking water, eating fruit, ready to go.  we bottom out at about 65 feet and see the most incredible fish and sea life.  one of the big problems here is the lion fish, they are absolutely beautiful but an invasive species.  hurricane katrina did a lot of damage here, one part being the release of lion fish from private aquariums.  since then they've killed off a large amount of natural species and they have no predators as they are very poisonous.  so all of the divemasters carry spears and any time someone spots one they kill it.

aside from all the giant grouper following the dead lion fish smells we had a giant barracuda hanging out with us, he seemed to like me a lot.  great dive.

we spent a little over an hour in this dive, then headed to the beach for lunch and our next surface interval.  half moon caye is just how you'd picture a tropical island, coconut palms, all sorts of different crazy blue colors of water, some small shacks.  you can pitch a tent there for $10 a nite, or rent a little bedroom for $20 a nite.  its a natural monument with a red footed booby rookery.

our third and final dive of the day is at long caye, the site is aquariums.  and it was exactly that, like you're the little diver in your tropical fish tank.  every fish i've ever seen is here in giant schools, fans, corals, grouper, giant tarpon, lobsters, eels, turtles, rays, sharks, my filefish, angels, butterflies, so many that i don't know the names of.  huge schools would swim through you like they didn't even notice you're there.  this was truly the best dive i've done to see the incredible diversity of a reef, its far enough away from boat traffic to keep it pristine.

we stayed down for about an hour then sadly, it was time to head home.  we had about 2 hours to get back and the crew breaks out the snickers bars and rum.  suddenly we're drunk (the fun bunch of the group, anyway), and discussing strippers and english literature.

there were 4 of us that have been diving together since the storm, but maria and jennifer have to go home tomorrow.  john will be here another week.  i realized that i've been here a week and i don't have a place to live tomorrow, i can't possibly move to my next spot yet.  i prepaid for 5 days of diving and a night dive and have only gotten to do 2 days plus the blue hole.  so i'll be looking for a place to live tomorrow instead of diving, hopefully there's no one moving into my condo and i can keep it for another week.  i have plans to kayak the lagoons in the afternoon with john, looking for crocodiles.  he thinks it would be a good idea to get a live chicken from the market and tie it to my kayak, while he videos what happens.  he's full of interesting ideas.


giant blue hole in the middle of nowhere





Saturday, August 11, 2012

hello, fire coral

i really like this place if i don't have to go far from my condo.  i'm sitting on my lanai, second floor, about 50 feet from the ocean, people watching.  a man in long dreads spent half an hour breaking coconuts, and now there's 2 boys about 8 years old gutting and cleaning the fish they caught.  a giant flock of birds is circling and every time they throw chum in the water they race and dive into the water for it.  an occasional ray swims up to see if anything sinks to the bottom.  this is way more entertaining than tv.

i was supposed to dive the blue hole today.  the boat was coming at 5:30am to pick up me and john, and like a moron i set my alarm for 4:30pm.  miraculously, i woke up at 5:19, jumped into a bikini, grabbed a pareo and a banana, and ran out the door.  i made it with a minute to spare.  we got to the pier where the big boat was leaving from and thankfully they had coffee and breakfast waiting.

we got our gear ready and took off for a 2.5 hour ride to the dive site.  after about half an hour the boat did a u-turn and dead stopped.  all the guys ran around, opened the hatches, messed with the engine, and we had to come home.  boo.  it took us almost an hour to get home and rescheduled to tomorrow, on the condition that they can fix the engines.  and that i can go another nite without drinking at the bars.

i later find out that even with all these boats on the island there are very few diesel mechanics, and all of their parts have to be flown in when needed.

there were 4 of us from yesterday's dive group going to blue hole so we had to go to our original dive shop to see if they had space for us today.  the blue hole is a long, involved trip so the individual dive shops sign people up, then when there's enough people everyone goes with one company on a 50 foot boat, and its a 3 dive day, in total about 10 hours of boat and diving.

so i did more dives today with our group, the first was at sandy bottom, near the hol chan marine preserve.  again, an amazing dive.  we went to about 90 feet and saw more of everything, lion fish, huge grouper, those little crabs that look like super leggy spiders.  a nurse shark kept bumping rubin, our divemaster, and eventually he had to punch it in the head.  a remora swam with us for the entire dive.

then we grabbed snorkel gear and went to shark & ray alley for our surface interval.  the guys dangled a long white container that looks like a buoy with holes over the side, filled with chum, and dozens of nurse sharks and rays fought over it.  we could dive down and pet them, they didn't care.  it was kinda strange the first time i touched a shark, i knew it wasn't going to bite me but it kept staring at me with these crazy yellow eyes, and my mind kept telling me that i should be swimming away as fast as i could.  the rays were sort of slimy.

best snorkel ever.  ok maybe second, after the whale sharks a couple weeks ago.

our second dive was at esmereldas and rubin carried a long line with chum and again we had nurse sharks and giant grouper fighting over it.  this might be my favorite dive so far, every kind of fish and marine life as the other dives with amazing underwater landscape.  my favorite fish is the filefish, they are the most amazing color purple.  with kissy lips.  i was staring at one, floating along in the current when i must have drifted through a patch of fire coral.  it felt like my entire left leg caught on fire.  ok, lesson learned, good to know what fire coral looks like.

one of the crew was swimming with us and he prodded a puffer fish, maybe cutest thing ever.  the fish's fins look normal when its just swimming around, but when he's puffed up he still has these teensy fins that are now pretty ineffectual.  but so adorable.

i made plans to snorkel tonite, about 9pm, john brought a couple dive lights from home.  but as i was making lunch i sliced a chunk out of my thumb so i guess i have to cancel.  i ran to the medical center, its gushing blood so i have a feeling it would be better to get some stitches but they are closed today.  i was wondering when this would happen, its been a few months since i've needed stitches and knew it couldn't be too much longer.  think of all the cool new sharks i'll get to see tomorrow, though.



Friday, August 10, 2012

chicken drop and first belize scuba dives

last things first.  i did 2 dives today from the reef off ambergris caye and they were wonderful.  there were 7 of us, our divemaster and crew, we boarded a 25ish foot boat and headed out.  there's a small break in the reef that all the boats use, the only place nearby that a boat can cross to the outside.  the reef system here is incredible, it goes as far as you can see.  the weather had calmed down considerably, sunny and only a perfect amount of breeze.

our first stop was the mermaid's lair, just outside the reef, we went down about 90 feet.  almost to the bottom the first thing i see is about a dozen sharks below me, nurse sharks, maybe 5 feet long.  they were beautiful, swimming peacefully, they'd come up pretty close to check us out.  we had all types of fish, turtles, many more sharks, and the corals and fans were great.  the visibility was about 40 feet (?) which i thought was really good considering the 2 days of storms that just passed.

the second dive was at tuffy's, again just outside the reef, and it was good as well.  the grouper were huge!  there wasn't the crazy color that i saw in cozumel, or nearly the amounts of fish, but all in all they were 2 good dives.  kinda makes me think that i should pop back up to cozumel for another week of diving, as long as i'm still this close.

the group i dove with was great, all very nice people.  funniest thing, there was only 1 person who was not originally from ohio.  one woman grew up in parma hts and was about my age, its weird to think that at some point in my 14 years in middleburg hts i probably encountered her and never knew it.

i had previously seen most of our group at a bar last nite.  not surprising since basically every tourist on the island goes to see the chicken drop, which is held only on thursday nites.

i walk to the bar at about 7pm last nite, its about a 10 minute walk from my condo.  i was told to pass the public square and you can't miss it.  so true.  i was walking along the beach and most bars had a few people here and there, then from a distance i hear a live band blaring and see dozens of people in one spot.  must be it.  theres a giant white square on the sand with mesh on all sides, and numbers 1-100 in smaller squares.  you go inside the bar, buy as many squares as you want for a dollar each. there are about 10 games all nite so plenty chances.  the idea is that they put a chicken in the square and it wanders around until it poops, then whatever number it poops on is the winner.  you get the $100.

i must admit that it was pretty entertaining, but not something that i ever need to do again.  it sounded a little more exciting than it actually was.  mostly the chicken just stood there and stared at the people.  the fun part was the announcer.  i've never heard so many cock or poop jokes at one time in my life.

when it was time to start he'd yell into his microphone 'chicken security!  bring me a chicken!'  and these young boys wearing chicken security shirts would come out with a chicken.  if the chicken was in the ring for too long without pooping, 'chicken security!  bring me a cock!'  and a bigger chicken would get added to the ring.  and the whole time they're playing this funky 'sexy chicken' song that the band wrote (and were selling cds of on the beach).

i only stayed a couple hours, although i wanted to stay out a good bit of the nite.  the local guys at the bar were making me crazy, they see a girl by herself and it was feeding frenzy.  hey girl wyncha come back to my place i got somethin for ya, hey girl where's ya husband, hey girl i'm the one ya came hea lookin fo, hey girl let's you n me go make our own party, on and on and on.  it was pathetically horrible.  one guy grabbed my arm and i told him to let go and pulled and pulled (all the while he's doing his version of sweet talking me) and i finally told him that he was gonna spend the nite digging his severed fingers out of his asshole if he didn't let go.  that worked.

so there's 3 types of guys that live on this island.  the first are the landsharks, as noted above, that are easily identifiable from a distance because they are kinda gross, don't necessarily have a full set of teeth, and begin shouting things that 'seem' sweet as you walk by.  they are doing their very best to find not only a woman, but one that will pay for all their drinks, buy them cigarettes, etc.  i told one that if he was really looking for a sugar momma he should consider the occasional shower.  with soap.  needless to say i didn't spend any money on any of these guys.

the second type of guy is the one that sees how horrible the first type is acting towards me and comes to tell me what jerks they are, no manners, no class, they're giving all of us a bad name.  but if you were my girl i'd treat you way better.  so same basic guy, just going for the soft sell, like he's the knight in shining armor protecting me from the first type.

the third type is the actual nice guy.  and they don't hang out at the tourist bars.

so i spent my time chatting up random tourist guys since the local guys don't wanna bother with them.  i met a guy with a cleveland firefighters shirt on, and the same white velcro sneakers as my dad. that was pretty funny.  for a second i thought my dad had come by for a visit.  i also attached myself to a giant bearded harley type guy from texas smoking a cigar.  i didn't tell them that i was using them as a cockblocker (yup more chicken jokes).

but every time i got up to get a beer i'd get waylaid by another local (baby why you got no man, you must be lookin fo one, i got somethin you like) so after my numbers didn't get pooped on i bolted.  i had to run the gauntlet of locals on the way home (honey you don gotta be alone tonite) and was pretty happy when i was back in my air conditioning.

i hate being rude to people but the guys here are more annoying than the shopkeepers in mexico.  i'd really like to talk to the local guys but its nearly impossible without eventually having to tell them to fuck off.  the guys at the dive shop are great, and if i'm dying to talk to someone that's not a tourist i go to the grocery store and chat up the women.

i was worried about tonite, its friday nite and i really wanted to hit the bars, but after last nite its just not worth the hassle.  i needn't worry, though, because i get to dive the blue hole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Blue_Hole) tomorrow!  and my boat is coming to pick me up at 5:30am.  which means dinner and beers at wet willys on the pier and home in bed by 10.



sexy chicken chicken, sexy chicken chicken

Thursday, August 9, 2012

ambergris caye

ernesto may be past but the weather here is still unpleasant enough to make me want to stay on my lanai and be lazy.  i ventured out yesterday long enough to walk the entire town and not feel like i'm missing much.  there isn't anything to do in bad weather except drink, and with the wind kicking at a steady 30 or so an outdoor bar doesn't appeal to me.

in my few hours of wandering i covered all the main streets and some far off ones.  the beaches aren't great, they're mostly hard packed for golf carts and covered in debris from the storm. this isn't a place for a beach towel and a drink.  there aren't swimming areas both due to the storm and that boats are the main activity and there are warnings that they won't look for you in the water.  the wind is too strong to rent the one paddleboard on the island.  i stopped in both of the yoga studios and found that it costs way more than i'm willing to spend for an hour.  so what to do...

there are 3 bars that i want to go to tonite.  one is wet willy's, just a short walk from my condo.  it seems like the kind of place that i'd like, but its out on a pier and if the wind doesn't die down i may skip it.  the second is the jaguar club, its a techno/house/loud dance club that i normally don't bother with but i met some of the guys that work there and they convinced me to at least stop by.  and its ladies nite.  the last is fido's and they have a 'chicken drop' on thursday nites.  you buy a number for a dollar, all the numbers get laid out on the ground in a little fence, they throw in a chicken and whatever number the chicken poops on is the winner.  how can i skip that?

i had lunch at a local favorite, elvi's, got the belizean tacos.  if you ever wondered what a fry jack is, well, i'm not sure either but that's what i ordered.  it was a fried corn thing that replaced a taco shell.  kinda poofy so i couldn't pick up my tacos but also hard to cut with a knife.  probably won't get it again.  came with fried bananas that were very good.  the local rum punch was so super sweet that i could almost hear my dentist crying.  and no, i'm not wondering why i've been gaining weight.

i was a bit put off by the actual town of san pedro, everything is run down and dirty, garbage everywhere.  wasn't super charming like the guidebooks say.  the people are a mix of latin, creole and mayan and for the most part very nice.  i did get followed down the street a few times by older rasta guys 'wanting to get to know me,' but i'm not much into the stalker types so i had to decline.

i see the dive shops getting their gear back out today so it seems like tomorrow they might be running trips again.  the wind waves at the reef are fairly constant so i'm not sure if its going to be any good but i may as well try one dive.  if its good i'll stick around for more.  i'm planning the next stop in my trip and this entire country looks rainy so i'm not in a big hurry, but i have to remember to check on the next tropical storm forming, that'll probably decide when i leave.  but for now this is an ok place to sit and do nothing.


tacos on fry jacks


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

ernesto, day 2

i was actually disappointed last nite when i went to bed.  i was expecting all hell to break loose but instead it was a pretty pleasant day, one of the first in weeks that i wasn't dying of heat.  i went to bed around 10:30 and set my alarm for 12:30 so i could witness the weather during landfall.  and i was still disappointed, i could've slept through it.

i sat outside for a while, then set my alarm for 4:30, thinking it might be better.  and nothing.  not even any rain, again quite pleasant outside.  i could hear the ocean boiling but i couldn't see anything, the lights on the piers don't reach nearly far out enough to see the reef, where all the action was happening.

i didn't bother to set my alarm again but woke up around 8:30 when my windows were rattling.  i stepped out of the bedroom and noticed my entire living room floor flooded, the wind was coming from the opposite direction that they prepared for.  the maintenance guys boarded up my back windows but not the ocean side.  i'm on the second floor of the building, ocean view.  which might seem stupid right now but its actually pretty cool.  i have a great view of everything going on.

my entrance is downstairs, again ocean side, and water is pouring in but there's a long way to go before i would even think to worry about it.  everything is concrete and tile so i doubt there's going to be any lasting damage.  i did move the tv into the back room and got all my clothes off the floor.

today ernesto is pretty angry.  the winds are incredibly strong, noaa says 60mph but i don't think they're quite there, i've been outside and have seen random people by the beach.  rain is pretty strong with occasional thunder.

i was thinking that i'd stay another week here to try to do some scuba diving but it looks like there's another tropical storm forming and moving westward.  i got lucky this time when the hurricane hit 50 miles north of me but i should probably just be thankful and move on.  hurricane keith demolished this place a few years ago.  scuba diving belize will have to wait for some far off vacation time, assuming that i ever have enough money to go anywhere again.


front row action

 

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

what up, ernesto?

hurricane time.  looks like ernesto's gonna pass to the north and its moving pretty quickly so no one here is seriously worried.  the town is slowly boarding up but there's still plenty people cruising the streets.  rain is off and on, going from serious scary downpour to bits of sunshine and back.  the surf out at the reef is pumping pretty big and there's the start of flooding in the streets and on the beaches.

i have until 5pm to leave the island then all transportation gets cut off.  after talking to guys at restaurants and stores i decided to stay and check it out.  my windows are getting boarded at 3pm and i'm hoping to meet someone having a hurricane party before too long.

all of my toys are charged, unpacked my headlamp and water purifier, discovered a big pack of candles in a drawer, and bought some groceries.  i have several cans of tuna, veggies, corn tortillas and cans of beans.  bought a dozen eggs to boil before the power goes out and will fill all my pots and pans with water.

made a devastating discovery this morning, all alcohol sales were cut off at noon.  i found out at 12:20.  the first store i went to made me put all my beer back in the cooler.  the second store had a cute young boy at the register and i begged and flirted until he sold me 4 beers.  so now i have 5 beers, i'll crack the first one maybe an hour or 2 before landfall.

that first store better watch out, though, if we do get hit by something big.  when people start looting i'm gonna throw a brick through their window and take all their rum.


little rain today





Monday, August 6, 2012

adios mexico, hola belize!

wow what a nite.  really shows what a poor planner i am, and maybe i'm not qualified to take myself around the world.

i had to check out of my hotel in cozumel at 2, figured i'd grab the first ferry to playa del carmen, hang out in a bar for the afternoon and take the late bus to chetumal for the boat to belize.  good plan.  but when i got to playa i found a bus leaving at 6, figured i'd hop on.  but that put me in chetumal at 11 and none of the hotels were open.  and the first boat to belize was at 3 the next day.  that really sucked.  i had a late dinner at a taco stand and slept in the bus station with the homeless guys.  couldn't ask for more uncomfortable benches.  i really feel every bit of 40 today.

i managed to get a few hours sleep and since there wasn't much around the bus station i took a cab to the dock, listed online as in 'the heart of chetumal'.  the heart actually means government offices. so its about 7am, i have 8 hours till my boat, and i'm in a giant park in the square with all my gear just waiting for the sun to melt me.  super poor plan.  the boat office is closed and there's just a few handfuls of people wandering into their office jobs.  and their spanish is fast and slightly different and no one spoke english.  all i wanted was directions to a public bathroom.

finally the boat office opens and i get checked in, pay some sort of unnecessary tax to leave the country, and get directed to the office next door to pay even more for another stamp on my passport.  i've paid enough people and now i can officially leave the country.  and i get directions to a restaurant to try to kill a few more hours.

between the restaurant and laying under the trees in the park its now time to get on the boat to belize, ambergris caye, actually, and the storm starts rolling in.  i've been hearing for a couple of days about a hurricane coming this way but everyone thinks it'll miss belize so i didn't think to change my plans.  i could've easily stayed on cozumel diving and drinking for another week.  but here i am in chetumal with lightning and thunder and pouring rain and crazy wind, about to get on a boat with 30 other people and all our luggage for a 2 hour barf fest.  a few people were trying to find where to get sea sick meds before the storm came up but they were unsuccessful, so they were already taking bets on who was gonna puke first.  this boat is small, no windows, no a/c, i figure if i have to smell puke the whole way i'll eventually be doing it myself.

in actuality it was a pleasant trip.  a bit jarring due to the wind waves and the crew opened a rear hatch for the sickies.  i'm not sure i've ever gone so fast in a boat before, at one point the wind caught the side hatch and ripped it open causing several people to freak out.  but we outran the storm, i fell asleep, and woke up in sunny ambergris caye.

immigration and customs were sort of a joke, we lined up in a shack and waited a while for two guys in uniforms to arrive in their golf cart.  it took about 1 minute to get through, i was asked if there was anything in my bags that shouldn't be there, i said no, off i went.

i needed a cab because i didn't google my hotel, plus it was crazy hot and i was soaked from standing in the rain in mexico, but i didn't have anything but pesos in my wallet.  so i got screwed on the exchange but it got me to my place.  i'm staying at tradewinds paradise villas, i set up a deal with a hotel and scuba package.  decently nice place, ocean front, swimming pool, air conditioning, wifi, everything i need.  a quick swim and a shower and i can start to erase the last 24 hours.  not showering for 24 hours in 94 degree humid weather is really not cool.  i smelled worse than the bus station.

there were 2 couples at the pool when i went swimming and got some info from them.  basically the same as most places i've been, one price for locals and another outrageous price for tourists.  they filled me in on fun things to do and good restaurants, which i immediately forget, as is my way.  i found a grocery store and it was pretty crazy expensive, especially with the hurricane threat.  i tried very hard to only speak spanish so maybe i'd get a better deal but actually ended up making people laugh at the stupid crap that came out of my sleep deprived brain.  but i think i scored a few points for trying, better than the guy in front of me asking how much everything was in american dollars...well, dumbass, divide by 2.  i've only been here for an hour and i know that much.

now i'm sitting on my lanai, got my belikin beer, watching the lightning show.  and the guys hammering plywood over the windows.  my scuba dives have already been cancelled for tomorrow since everyone is pulling their gear from the water.  i don't think the hurricane will hit here but i think i'm just being optimistic since i don't want to evacuate.  every time i enter 'belize' into the weather channel website it gives me bahrain so i guess i'll just keep my head in the sand for a while longer.  someone will tell me if i need to leave.  i hope.



great day for a boat trip